Good morning,
I am writing to you today (Wednesday, 5 August) with an update on water supplies in Herne Bay, Whitstable and surrounding areas.
Due to unprecedented, prolonged hot weather and record-low rainfall across Kent, drinking water storage tanks in your area continue to be critically low. While all customers are currently in supply, demand continues to outstrip supply, creating a high risk of sudden supply interruptions.
We understand you have experienced disruptions in recent times, and we are so sorry for this.
What are we doing?
We are working around the clock to balance the network and keep water flowing to your homes:
Moving water to where it is needed most and making sure all available water treatment works operate at maximum capacity.
Tankering water directly into storage tanks and injecting water straight into the local network.
Deploying as many teams as possible to find and fix leaks in your area.
Communicating with local businesses and farms to help reduce their demand.
What you can do
We’re continuing to ask customers to use water for essential purposes only: drinking, cooking and hygiene. This is in line with our temporary usage ban that is now in place for all of our 2.4 million customers across our supply area.
We know we have work to do to build long-term resilience in your area. While those building plans take time, these small actions over the coming days will allow our storage tanks to steadily refill rather than continue to drain down.
When will you update me again?
We are monitoring the situation continuously and will update you again tomorrow (Thursday, 6 August) with news on this developing situation or earlier if the situation escalates.
Thank you for your help, patience, and support. Please share this information within your communities.
Kind regards,
Matthew Dean